'I am very glad,' said Dr Moore, 'that someone does take an interest in her, but I must say I wish it was a woman instead of a man, for it is a woman's care and kindness she will need by-and-by.'
'So I imagined,' said Petrovitch thoughtfully, 'and I suppose the best I can do towards her is to try and find for her such care and kindness.'
'I am afraid it will be difficult; women are angels, certainly, but they are very apt to be hard on each other.'
'Very much like the rest of us. But, like the rest of us, they can sometimes be got to hear reason.'
'That's not the general opinion of women,' said Dr Moore, laughing; 'but I hope you're right. I have seen a great many of these sad cases,' he went on, gravely, 'but very, very few of the others. We're all much too ready to cast stones, and it's two to one if a girl's in trouble that a female priest or Levite comes by, and not a good Samaritan.'
The doctor was pleased with his visitor, whose face and figure were not quite like those that usually faced him in his drug-scented surgery, and when the interview ended it was he who offered the hand-shake.
As Petrovitch came out of the door he glanced at his watch.
'Now for a third interview,' he thought, and he did not think in English. 'Only two hours and a-half in which to work a miracle.'
If this man had no connection with the Bible reading and City missionary fraternity, he had at least one thing to which they lay claim—the faith which moves mountains; but it was faith in humanity, and faith in himself.